TicketsCINCINNATI – Director of Athletics John Cunningham introduced Cincinnati women's basketball head coach Katrina Merriweather in a press conference on Tuesday.
A former captain and four-year letterwinner for the Bearcats from 1997-2001, Merriweather acknowledged the influence that her time as a student-athlete and former hall of fame head coach Laurie Pirtle had on what she wants to instill at the helm of her alma mater.
"25 years ago, who knew when Laurie Pirtle called that I would be standing right here right now," Merriweather said. "My experience here at Cincinnati was some of the best years of my life"
"The most important thing is the buy in from our student athletes," Merriweather added. "I maintain that when players know you are invested in them, they will turn around and they will do anything for you. I know that because that is the coach that I played for, someone who could relate and build those relationships to where you have two people working hard toward the same goal."
"They embraced me and taught me things that were not about basketball, but about life, and that is an incredible gift a coach can give to its players. I thank you for what you did for me. Not just on the floor, but obviously for me as people and as a person. "
"I am who I am because of who we all are here," Merriweather said about the support she has received. "That is why I am still in love with this place."
Influenced by her coaching mentors – from Pirtle to Wright State's Mike Bradbury – Merriweather talked about the style in which her teams play with and what fans can expect to see on the court.
"We always talk about defending and rebounding. It's the one thing that travels," Merriweather added. That's what you are going to see from our team; a team that works really hard and that is fundamental and disciplined. I hate to say that plays the game the right way because there are different ways to play, but the way that we believe it should be played and that's going to be playing really hard."
"The impact that Pirtle and the staff had on me was a carryover from what I also got from my dad, my high school coach. It was that you can build people up, you can have people believing that they can accomplish things that they had no idea they could. We walked with our head up and our shoulders back and it didn't matter if we were the best team or not, we always believed that we could compete and beat anyone that we played against. That is exactly what the goal is going to be here and moving forward."
"At the end of the day, what we are going to do is have people here who want to have Cincinnati across their chest."
Below is the full transcript from Merriweather's introductory press conference.
Head Coach Katrina Merriweather Opening Statement
"I am incredibly thankful of John (Cunningham) and Maggie (McKinley) and President (Neville) Pinto for believing in me to give me this opportunity. Thank you to my whole family for being here, it means a lot.
25 years ago, who knew when Laurie Pirtle called that I would be standing right here right now. My experience here was not only some of the best years of my life, but it is where I learned and where I became an adult and a woman and where I was taught how to survive in this world. When Mark Lewis was on the staff, who left for Washington and Mike Bradberry took over and Dawn Hoosier. these people Ester McMillian, they embraced me and taught me things that were not about basketball, but about life, and that is an incredible gift a coach can give to its players. I thank you for what you did for me. Not just on the floor but obviously for me as people and as a person.
To my teammates, I think when Laurie (Pirtle) taught us that teammates are forever, this is what she meant. No matter what we went through, no matter what was going on in our lives, that it would be something that would connect us forever. It doesn't matter where I have coached, it doesn't matter what I have been through, we have been there for each other the entire time. To have you all here means everything thank you.
What we have is a goal to continue to build. I always believed that I stand on the shoulder of other people. The coaches that have coached here, the players that have played here, that were my teammates or not my teammates, they have always been so gracious. They have always invited us back, and they have always encouraged us to be a part. So, when we say things like once a Bearcat, always a Bearcat, I have never felt like I was not a part of this program. Whether it was coming back for homecoming and meeting up with my sorority sisters and or meeting professors that helped me be a double major student-athlete. They did everything they could to allow me in my fifth year, when Laurie asked me to be a graduate assistant, I had people that made sure I could do all my field experience and education so that I was allowed to graduate with my English degree and as well as my secondary education degree. These are the people that are the heartbeat of this place and that is why I wanted to come back.
John has done a tremendous job making sure we are ready to go into the Big 12, but he has also done a great job of surrounding himself with people who care about these student-athletes. It is the most important thing to me and it always will be. That is because I was poured into and now it is my job, it is my responsibility to continue to pour into young people. I am so incredibly thankful for how I have been embraced by these young women whom I met for the first time on zoom, even though I have seen them play a few times. For them to show up yesterday meant everything, thank you for showing up already for me and I appreciate that.
You will see my staff and my family; my staff is my family. I know there will be a lot of questions about what the future will look like, but at the end of the day thank you all for always being here to support me. No matter what decisions I made professionally that have impacted you, you have never wavered, you have never not been supportive and there is no way I could have accomplished what I have without you. Everything that I am is what we are. That is what we have been taught, I am who I am because of who we all are. That is why I am still standing here in love with this place. It is because there are people that continue to show and pour into not just me, but into the people I care about, they people that are the most important. We are going to work really hard; we are going to do everything we can to compete. We are going to grow and develop these young people. We are going to do everything we can to compete for championships because it's the only thing that I know how to do.
I want to share a story that most people feel wouldn't be a part of my story. After my freshman year, and I have done this every year since I have been coaching, I have a had a conversation and you recap the story and I felt my grades were very good and that I had high character and I was a really good player, I had no idea my scholarship was on the line when I went into that meeting. The reason my scholarship was on the line Laurie told me was you just aren't doing what I know you are capable of doing. It was the first time that I was told doing just enough was not good enough. Excellence is always the standard to always do what you are capable of doing and not just what you can get away with doing. That conversation changes the entire directory of how I view life and I appreciate that lesson more than anything. Whether we go into a game or community service or are in the classroom having conversations about how we are doing academically, excellence is the standard."
On what she learned from her two seasons at Memphis
"The most important thing is the buy in from our student athletes. When we walked into that first job, I felt like there were student-athletes that were looking for something. The conversation we had right away was that you can trust who I am, and I can trust that you want to be the best that you can be, we can skip a lot of steps and get right to learning about each other and learning some basketball. When they decided that that was what they wanted to do and that is what allowed us to have a quick turn-around. It was simply just believing and that's what I expect to happen here."
On her past as a player
"I will say that the development that I had under Dawn (Hoosier) was huge. I was very much and in between, a three/four and played a lot of forward in high school. Where you look at teams now and players are 6'0 and I am all of 5'8, no matter what any media guide says. I was not as good of a ball handler, but I know I was greatly improved, and it was simply because of the development and investment that was put into me."
On how her teams play
"We always talk about defending and rebounding. It's the one thing that travels. My staff has put together some information that I don't really recall but something to the fact that every team that we've had has been in the top 15, rebounding wise, in the country. It's something that we work on. In my mind there are things that you marry, engage and things that you date. We marry rebounding. For us, it's going to be things that we can carry at home and on the road. You're going to see a team that works really hard; a team that is fundamental and disciplined. I hate to say a team that plays the game the right way because there are different ways to play it but the way that we believe it should be played and that's going to be playing really hard. When people watch us play, they're going to say, 'Man they played really hard.' That's the best thing for me to hear, that we love watching your team and the effort that they leave out there."
On the message that the fanbase can spread about the program
"We are in a space where there are all sorts of growth happening in athletics, and in particularly our sport for the visibility of the WNBA. We all know about NIL and all those sorts of things. We are going to want people in our program who want to be Bearcats, That is the single most important thing. We want you to want to be here, believe in what we are doing, and that we are going to invest far beyond the floor. We are going to do everything we can. One of the things that we say in recruiting a lot is that you are going to hand us a young lady and we are going to hand you back a young woman. It is important through the journey with us, that when these young people graduate, they will go off and do amazing things in the community. Simply we need to find people and or they need to find us, because I believe in reciprocity, in recruiting, and if they want to be Bearcats, that is the single most important thing."
On how she measures success in her program
"Honestly, despite the social media presence and the attention that the program and all of athletics receive, internally. Because we are the only ones that are going to be aware of our journey, we are going to be the only ones that know the small victories and the improvements and what we will aways do is set small goals so that we can celebrate victories. We will see how that equates to wins and losses, but it is important to develop the mentality that we have an identity. To me, that is more important than wins or loses especially in the beginning, it is important that we are on the same page. Of course, we are going to compete, of course we are going to go into each game prepared with a plan and we are going to do our very best to execute the plan. People are underestimating the talent that is on this team and what we are going to be able to do and that is okay because that is for us to evaluate and for us to build on and that is what our plan is to make sure we are on the same page, celebrate the small victories and eventually we will get exactly what we worked for."
On her first meeting with the team
"They are ready to go, you just saw them get up and leave they are going to weights. It was important to have them here, they are going to do what they are responsible for doing which is getting ready. We talked a lot about all the things that I think are important as you get to develop relationships. Talking about family, everything from their birth order to their zodiac signs, what they are wanting to major in and what they are going to do afterwards. I maintain that when people know you are invested in them, they will turn around and they will do anything for you. I know that because that is who I played for, is someone who could relate, someone who built those relationships and then you have two people who are working really hard for the same goal."
On NIL and the transfer portal in terms of recruiting
"It is so new, and I think it matters to sit down and have a lot of conversations about what it looks like. We have had those conversations and we are going to use NIL in the best way that suits our young folks. I think there is a responsibility there for them and their branding, there are plenty of people here that are in plays to have those conversations. We, however, want people that want to be Bearcats and that again is the single most important thing. Transfer portal can be tricky, what we have used it for in the past year is kids that did not pick us the first time, the relationship was already built, and they come back. I am not interested in doing anything so quick that the culture of the program is sacrificed, I think that it is a process and we're going to go through that process and journey. I chose Cincinnati so it's hard for me to understand how someone else could not chose it. What we will do is muddle through that in the best ways possible. One thing is to get in the gym with this current roster and see what this team needs. We're not going out and are grabbing 'the best players' we can get. It's about creating a team and building a program, not trying to win as quick as possible so that you have those inconsistent performances and ups and downs. I believe that championship programs are built before your players."
On the impact Laurie Pirtle had on her decision to become a coach
"It was brought up that in the media guide, my sophomore year, that my future plans were to be a college coach. I recall wanting to be the first journalist in the NBA locker room, but apparently that's not what I felt that day. The impact that Pirtle and the staff had on me, it was a carryover from what I also got from my dad, my high school coach. It was that you can build people up, you can have people believing that they can accomplish things that they had no idea they could. I had some great teammates and what I've always been really good at is picking really good situations. Not one year was I the best player on the team here, but that group of seniors and leaders are why I wanted to come to Cincinnati. They had called themselves the basement group. They were the ones who were bringing Cincinnati women's basketball to where it became and by the time that they left, we were able to take over and continue to do what they had been doing. It was everything, it was the environment, the kids that the staff recruited. It was the type of people we were. it wasn't just one thing. It was the simple belief, people will argue that we beat teams we shouldn't have but it was the belief that if you walk behind Pirtle in a conference tournament, you believe that you're going to win that whole thing. We walked with our head up and our shoulders back and it didn't matter if we were the best team or not, we always believed that we could compete and beat anyone that we played against. That is exactly what the goal is going to be here and moving forward."
On the recruiting in Ohio
"Ohio has always had a lot of talent. Ohio also has 13 Division One schools. There are a lot of options for kids in Ohio. We are going to work to take care of home and do everything we can to recruit here locally. We'll override everything. We are not going to beg people to come here, and we're not going to believe. The people who want to work hard, be proud of what is across their chest, are the people that are going to be on this team. We are very confident that there will be enough talented players that want to do that in order for us to compete. The goal is to be close to home. I just came home. I know the power of that, and I know the importance of that. At the end of the day, what we're going to do is have people who want to have Cincinnati across their chest."
On how it feels to be back home at her alma mater
"I have to be honest, I talked to very few people throughout this process. We were still playing, first of all, and out of respect to the situation, which I can greatly appreciate the way that it was handled and the patience that was exhibited as our season was continuing at our last place. I called Laurie (Pirtle) to ask how she felt about it. I didn't call her to tell her that I was accepting the job. In her voice, I could hear that she thought it was the right thing to do. So more than anything that she said, I could feel through the phone that this was the time, this was the place and exactly where I needed to be. What everyone has consistently done is supported me. They said, 'Whatever you want to do. We're right here with you. Whatever you need.' That is what it feels like to come home."
A former captain and four-year letterwinner for the Bearcats from 1997-2001, Merriweather acknowledged the influence that her time as a student-athlete and former hall of fame head coach Laurie Pirtle had on what she wants to instill at the helm of her alma mater.
"25 years ago, who knew when Laurie Pirtle called that I would be standing right here right now," Merriweather said. "My experience here at Cincinnati was some of the best years of my life"
"The most important thing is the buy in from our student athletes," Merriweather added. "I maintain that when players know you are invested in them, they will turn around and they will do anything for you. I know that because that is the coach that I played for, someone who could relate and build those relationships to where you have two people working hard toward the same goal."
"They embraced me and taught me things that were not about basketball, but about life, and that is an incredible gift a coach can give to its players. I thank you for what you did for me. Not just on the floor, but obviously for me as people and as a person. "
"I am who I am because of who we all are here," Merriweather said about the support she has received. "That is why I am still in love with this place."
Influenced by her coaching mentors – from Pirtle to Wright State's Mike Bradbury – Merriweather talked about the style in which her teams play with and what fans can expect to see on the court.
"We always talk about defending and rebounding. It's the one thing that travels," Merriweather added. That's what you are going to see from our team; a team that works really hard and that is fundamental and disciplined. I hate to say that plays the game the right way because there are different ways to play, but the way that we believe it should be played and that's going to be playing really hard."
"The impact that Pirtle and the staff had on me was a carryover from what I also got from my dad, my high school coach. It was that you can build people up, you can have people believing that they can accomplish things that they had no idea they could. We walked with our head up and our shoulders back and it didn't matter if we were the best team or not, we always believed that we could compete and beat anyone that we played against. That is exactly what the goal is going to be here and moving forward."
"At the end of the day, what we are going to do is have people here who want to have Cincinnati across their chest."
Below is the full transcript from Merriweather's introductory press conference.
Head Coach Katrina Merriweather Opening Statement
"I am incredibly thankful of John (Cunningham) and Maggie (McKinley) and President (Neville) Pinto for believing in me to give me this opportunity. Thank you to my whole family for being here, it means a lot.
25 years ago, who knew when Laurie Pirtle called that I would be standing right here right now. My experience here was not only some of the best years of my life, but it is where I learned and where I became an adult and a woman and where I was taught how to survive in this world. When Mark Lewis was on the staff, who left for Washington and Mike Bradberry took over and Dawn Hoosier. these people Ester McMillian, they embraced me and taught me things that were not about basketball, but about life, and that is an incredible gift a coach can give to its players. I thank you for what you did for me. Not just on the floor but obviously for me as people and as a person.
To my teammates, I think when Laurie (Pirtle) taught us that teammates are forever, this is what she meant. No matter what we went through, no matter what was going on in our lives, that it would be something that would connect us forever. It doesn't matter where I have coached, it doesn't matter what I have been through, we have been there for each other the entire time. To have you all here means everything thank you.
What we have is a goal to continue to build. I always believed that I stand on the shoulder of other people. The coaches that have coached here, the players that have played here, that were my teammates or not my teammates, they have always been so gracious. They have always invited us back, and they have always encouraged us to be a part. So, when we say things like once a Bearcat, always a Bearcat, I have never felt like I was not a part of this program. Whether it was coming back for homecoming and meeting up with my sorority sisters and or meeting professors that helped me be a double major student-athlete. They did everything they could to allow me in my fifth year, when Laurie asked me to be a graduate assistant, I had people that made sure I could do all my field experience and education so that I was allowed to graduate with my English degree and as well as my secondary education degree. These are the people that are the heartbeat of this place and that is why I wanted to come back.
John has done a tremendous job making sure we are ready to go into the Big 12, but he has also done a great job of surrounding himself with people who care about these student-athletes. It is the most important thing to me and it always will be. That is because I was poured into and now it is my job, it is my responsibility to continue to pour into young people. I am so incredibly thankful for how I have been embraced by these young women whom I met for the first time on zoom, even though I have seen them play a few times. For them to show up yesterday meant everything, thank you for showing up already for me and I appreciate that.
You will see my staff and my family; my staff is my family. I know there will be a lot of questions about what the future will look like, but at the end of the day thank you all for always being here to support me. No matter what decisions I made professionally that have impacted you, you have never wavered, you have never not been supportive and there is no way I could have accomplished what I have without you. Everything that I am is what we are. That is what we have been taught, I am who I am because of who we all are. That is why I am still standing here in love with this place. It is because there are people that continue to show and pour into not just me, but into the people I care about, they people that are the most important. We are going to work really hard; we are going to do everything we can to compete. We are going to grow and develop these young people. We are going to do everything we can to compete for championships because it's the only thing that I know how to do.
I want to share a story that most people feel wouldn't be a part of my story. After my freshman year, and I have done this every year since I have been coaching, I have a had a conversation and you recap the story and I felt my grades were very good and that I had high character and I was a really good player, I had no idea my scholarship was on the line when I went into that meeting. The reason my scholarship was on the line Laurie told me was you just aren't doing what I know you are capable of doing. It was the first time that I was told doing just enough was not good enough. Excellence is always the standard to always do what you are capable of doing and not just what you can get away with doing. That conversation changes the entire directory of how I view life and I appreciate that lesson more than anything. Whether we go into a game or community service or are in the classroom having conversations about how we are doing academically, excellence is the standard."
On what she learned from her two seasons at Memphis
"The most important thing is the buy in from our student athletes. When we walked into that first job, I felt like there were student-athletes that were looking for something. The conversation we had right away was that you can trust who I am, and I can trust that you want to be the best that you can be, we can skip a lot of steps and get right to learning about each other and learning some basketball. When they decided that that was what they wanted to do and that is what allowed us to have a quick turn-around. It was simply just believing and that's what I expect to happen here."
On her past as a player
"I will say that the development that I had under Dawn (Hoosier) was huge. I was very much and in between, a three/four and played a lot of forward in high school. Where you look at teams now and players are 6'0 and I am all of 5'8, no matter what any media guide says. I was not as good of a ball handler, but I know I was greatly improved, and it was simply because of the development and investment that was put into me."
On how her teams play
"We always talk about defending and rebounding. It's the one thing that travels. My staff has put together some information that I don't really recall but something to the fact that every team that we've had has been in the top 15, rebounding wise, in the country. It's something that we work on. In my mind there are things that you marry, engage and things that you date. We marry rebounding. For us, it's going to be things that we can carry at home and on the road. You're going to see a team that works really hard; a team that is fundamental and disciplined. I hate to say a team that plays the game the right way because there are different ways to play it but the way that we believe it should be played and that's going to be playing really hard. When people watch us play, they're going to say, 'Man they played really hard.' That's the best thing for me to hear, that we love watching your team and the effort that they leave out there."
On the message that the fanbase can spread about the program
"We are in a space where there are all sorts of growth happening in athletics, and in particularly our sport for the visibility of the WNBA. We all know about NIL and all those sorts of things. We are going to want people in our program who want to be Bearcats, That is the single most important thing. We want you to want to be here, believe in what we are doing, and that we are going to invest far beyond the floor. We are going to do everything we can. One of the things that we say in recruiting a lot is that you are going to hand us a young lady and we are going to hand you back a young woman. It is important through the journey with us, that when these young people graduate, they will go off and do amazing things in the community. Simply we need to find people and or they need to find us, because I believe in reciprocity, in recruiting, and if they want to be Bearcats, that is the single most important thing."
On how she measures success in her program
"Honestly, despite the social media presence and the attention that the program and all of athletics receive, internally. Because we are the only ones that are going to be aware of our journey, we are going to be the only ones that know the small victories and the improvements and what we will aways do is set small goals so that we can celebrate victories. We will see how that equates to wins and losses, but it is important to develop the mentality that we have an identity. To me, that is more important than wins or loses especially in the beginning, it is important that we are on the same page. Of course, we are going to compete, of course we are going to go into each game prepared with a plan and we are going to do our very best to execute the plan. People are underestimating the talent that is on this team and what we are going to be able to do and that is okay because that is for us to evaluate and for us to build on and that is what our plan is to make sure we are on the same page, celebrate the small victories and eventually we will get exactly what we worked for."
On her first meeting with the team
"They are ready to go, you just saw them get up and leave they are going to weights. It was important to have them here, they are going to do what they are responsible for doing which is getting ready. We talked a lot about all the things that I think are important as you get to develop relationships. Talking about family, everything from their birth order to their zodiac signs, what they are wanting to major in and what they are going to do afterwards. I maintain that when people know you are invested in them, they will turn around and they will do anything for you. I know that because that is who I played for, is someone who could relate, someone who built those relationships and then you have two people who are working really hard for the same goal."
On NIL and the transfer portal in terms of recruiting
"It is so new, and I think it matters to sit down and have a lot of conversations about what it looks like. We have had those conversations and we are going to use NIL in the best way that suits our young folks. I think there is a responsibility there for them and their branding, there are plenty of people here that are in plays to have those conversations. We, however, want people that want to be Bearcats and that again is the single most important thing. Transfer portal can be tricky, what we have used it for in the past year is kids that did not pick us the first time, the relationship was already built, and they come back. I am not interested in doing anything so quick that the culture of the program is sacrificed, I think that it is a process and we're going to go through that process and journey. I chose Cincinnati so it's hard for me to understand how someone else could not chose it. What we will do is muddle through that in the best ways possible. One thing is to get in the gym with this current roster and see what this team needs. We're not going out and are grabbing 'the best players' we can get. It's about creating a team and building a program, not trying to win as quick as possible so that you have those inconsistent performances and ups and downs. I believe that championship programs are built before your players."
On the impact Laurie Pirtle had on her decision to become a coach
"It was brought up that in the media guide, my sophomore year, that my future plans were to be a college coach. I recall wanting to be the first journalist in the NBA locker room, but apparently that's not what I felt that day. The impact that Pirtle and the staff had on me, it was a carryover from what I also got from my dad, my high school coach. It was that you can build people up, you can have people believing that they can accomplish things that they had no idea they could. I had some great teammates and what I've always been really good at is picking really good situations. Not one year was I the best player on the team here, but that group of seniors and leaders are why I wanted to come to Cincinnati. They had called themselves the basement group. They were the ones who were bringing Cincinnati women's basketball to where it became and by the time that they left, we were able to take over and continue to do what they had been doing. It was everything, it was the environment, the kids that the staff recruited. It was the type of people we were. it wasn't just one thing. It was the simple belief, people will argue that we beat teams we shouldn't have but it was the belief that if you walk behind Pirtle in a conference tournament, you believe that you're going to win that whole thing. We walked with our head up and our shoulders back and it didn't matter if we were the best team or not, we always believed that we could compete and beat anyone that we played against. That is exactly what the goal is going to be here and moving forward."
On the recruiting in Ohio
"Ohio has always had a lot of talent. Ohio also has 13 Division One schools. There are a lot of options for kids in Ohio. We are going to work to take care of home and do everything we can to recruit here locally. We'll override everything. We are not going to beg people to come here, and we're not going to believe. The people who want to work hard, be proud of what is across their chest, are the people that are going to be on this team. We are very confident that there will be enough talented players that want to do that in order for us to compete. The goal is to be close to home. I just came home. I know the power of that, and I know the importance of that. At the end of the day, what we're going to do is have people who want to have Cincinnati across their chest."
On how it feels to be back home at her alma mater
"I have to be honest, I talked to very few people throughout this process. We were still playing, first of all, and out of respect to the situation, which I can greatly appreciate the way that it was handled and the patience that was exhibited as our season was continuing at our last place. I called Laurie (Pirtle) to ask how she felt about it. I didn't call her to tell her that I was accepting the job. In her voice, I could hear that she thought it was the right thing to do. So more than anything that she said, I could feel through the phone that this was the time, this was the place and exactly where I needed to be. What everyone has consistently done is supported me. They said, 'Whatever you want to do. We're right here with you. Whatever you need.' That is what it feels like to come home."